


Send Us a Blindfold, Send Us a Blade

by Mnara



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Hurt Steve Rogers, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Recovery, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-06-05 15:05:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15173297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mnara/pseuds/Mnara
Summary: Bucky re-materialized mid-step, and everything had changed. His first thought was of Steve, but then again, his last thought was of Steve.The Avengers manage to restore the universe, but the cost is high, and Bucky finds himself stepping back into an old role, despite a deeply resistant Steve Rogers. Two warriors face their demons, face one another, and try to build something worth living for while the world around them falls apart. Nothing worth having is ever easy, especially when you haven't even figured out what you need.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *Major spoilers for The Avengers: Infinity War Part 1*

Bucky rematerialized mid-step. His boot hit the soft ground and he knew immediately that everything had changed. The leaves were crunchy just a moment ago. His first thought was of Steve, but then again, his last thought was of Steve, and since from Bucky’s perspective no time had passed since he watched his own hands flake away, it was really just one single moment of stumbling towards Steve and then wondering where Steve’s dumbstruck mug had disappeared. Wasn’t it Bucky who had drifted away?

“Steve?” he said, just in case.

He knew Steve was gone, though. Everything was different from the second before. The air was colder—hell, the season was different. It smelled like winter. The foliage had sprung up around him, lush and bright from fall floods. The sun was low, not high. One of the trees that moments ago was strong and standing, was now rotting on the ground. Perhaps strangest of all though, the noise was gone. In his last breath, a battle raged between the trees and in the fields, but now: nothing. Bucky slowly turned in a circle. Thanos was gone. 

He raised his gun and crept back in the direction of the open field, silent and careful. For all that HYDRA had laid a criss-cross web of misdirection and scrambled memory in his mind, they’d also given him one valuable skill: Bucky was a survivor. He wasn’t yet certain whether a great amount of time had passed or if he’d been transported to a different version of Earth (he’d just been fighting an alien space army over a bunch of magic rocks, so he felt reasonable in assuming that perhaps different “dimensions” were a thing). Either way, everything was new and he needed to collect as much information as possible.

He stalked between the trees, barrel leading, and it was clear that nobody had been in this grove in a long time. Any evidence of the previous fight had long been eaten by new grass. As he walked, a dark silhouette came into his vision, and a few more steps revealed the form of T’Challa, standing dead-still between the trees. Bucky moved forward cautiously, and he purposely rustled some leaves to alert T’Challa to his presence. The king turned his head and acknowledged Bucky with a nod and a grimace.

“Everything has changed,” he said. 

They didn’t say more. Silent and assessing, they moved through the trees together. Hadn’t Okoye been fighting Thanos with them, too? Bucky swivelled his gun barrell toward the creek and flicked his head in that direction so T’Challa would follow. Wanda and Vision were over here, he was sure.

They stepped from the half-light of the forest into the brighter edges by the creek, and Wanda was easy to find. She was on her knees, her arms wrapped around her body, staring at the ground, rocking herself and whispering in her first language, which Bucky recognized as something Eastern European. Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks and her words were regularly interrupted by sobs that shuddered through her whole body. Bucky immediately cursed that Steve wasn’t there to deal with this; doing reconnaissance in confusing and possibly hostile circumstances was within Bucky’s skill set, but comforting a distressed young woman sobbing on the ground was well out of his comfort zone. Or at least, well outside of The Winter Soldier’s zone. Bucky briefly reached for some memory from  _ before _ , searching for a time he might have known what to do, but he’d never really had a gal for long enough to earn the role of comforter. He’d nursed Steve when he was sick, but that was different. Besides, Steve never needed to be  _ comforted  _ when he was coughing up a lung in the midst of fever, he just needed Bucky to flash him a smile and remind him to breathe.

“Shape up, soldier,” Bucky said lowly in Russian. “We need to get moving, so quit that and let’s go.”

Wandra raised her head and stared at the two men. Her eyes flashed crimson, illuminating the tears. “I’m not your soldier,” she said in English. “And whatever else you said, I don’t care. Leave me.”

“I said, we have to go,” Bucky repeated, this time in English. “Something’s not right.”

“No, no something’s not right,” she said with gritted teeth. “Vision was  _ right here _ a moment ago. He was lying right here. Dead. But now he’s dead  _ and  _ gone. Does that seem right to you?” Her voice was getting louder, and Bucky waved his hand downward to hush her, but instead her own hands flashed toward him, glowing red, and she growled: “I’m tired of people telling me what to do.”

“Miss Maximoff,” came T’Challa’s low, even voice from behind him. “We will give you leave if you wish, but it would be best if you joined us. Thanos is gone, but there are many questions. We must find our companions and discover what’s happened. Your skills and company would be deeply appreciated. We will find out together what happened to Vision and the others.”

_ Thank god for diplomats,  _ Bucky thought, as Wanda’s hands gradually returned to normal. They hovered over the spot on the ground where just moments before Vision’s body had been, and then she pushed herself up, wiped her face, and nodded at the tense men. 

The three continued through the trees, and within a few hundred meters, they’d come out into the open fields where the Wakandan Tribes had just been facing off with Thanos’ army. Before them, hundreds of Wakandan soldiers loitered, gathered in small groups, whispering and looking perlexed. There was no trace of their enemy. There were no bodies (from either side of the squirmish) scattered between the long grasses. No blood splattered on the ground. The Wakandan wind rustled the field lazily.

“It’s like half the army disappeared,” Wanda said in awe under her breath.

“Or reappeared,” T’Challa stated. “I watched my own hands turn to ash, and then suddenly I was back on the forest floor again.”

“So we’re agreed that we...dissolved, and then time has passed,” said Bucky.

“So, it would appear,” the king said quietly, and then he broke into a run.

Bucky and Wanda followed T’Challa up the hill toward the compound—Bucky running and Wanda sailing beside him on a wake of scarlet. The compound looked more run-down that it had been earlier that day—or at least, to Bucky. The tall windows were hazed with pollen and streaked like they hadn’t been washed in ages. Weeds grew up between the cracks of the concrete. It didn’t look abandoned, and several guards stood sentry, but the building looked neglected.  _ How long have we been gone?  _ Bucky thought.

“Brother!!” A voice called from above, and T’Challa’s gait increased even faster as a small figure ran across the asphalt to meet him. “It’s you, it’s really you, T’Challa!” came Shuri’s voice, and then she was throwing her arms around her older brother. Shuri was almost frantic with excitement. She squeezed T’Challa and kissed his face, and then she was embracing a startled-looking Wanda before skipping over to Bucky and also hugging him. “Sergeant Barnes! I’m so glad you’re back,” she squealed. Bucky stepped out of her embrace in a panic (he didn’t like being touched), but she didn’t even seem to notice because she was back to T’Challa, giving him a second hug and welcoming him home. 

“You’re here! You’re all back,” she said, bouncing on her feet. “This means it worked! They did it! Thanos is defeated! Now everything can be repaired!”

“Slow down, Shuri,” T’Challa implored. “We have many questions, but you say Thanos is gone?”

Shuri took a breath. “If you’re all here, it means the Avengers were able to fulfill their mission. They went to Titan to put everything back.”

“They went where?” said Bucky, stepping closer.  _ Please say Titan isn’t a different planet or dimensional plane or whatever,  _ he thought, although it certainly wouldn’t have surprised him to hear Steve had blasted off in some spaceship with Stark to fight Thanos on his own turf. 

Shuri opened her mouth to answer, but then jumped back when a tree suddenly walked up to the group and said, “I am Groot.”

“What the—” she stuttered, and leaned forward with her hand outstretched toward the curious-looking creature. Bucky had briefly seen the strange tree-being on the battlefield when it had appeared in a flash of light with Thor and a heavily-armed talking racoon, but now that it was up close and not in battle, Bucky felt his mouth gape open as his brain processed that it was indeed a sentient, talking plant. 

“I am Groot,” it growled when Shuri tugged at a leaf.

“You’re Rocket’s friend,” she said. “He’s told me about you. He’s here.” Shuri straightened, but she kept staring at Groot while she addressed the group. “Come inside. I’ll tell you from the beginning.”

As they walked through the compound, higher and higher through dimly lit halls and stairways, Shuri spoke: “When Thanos used the gauntlet, he caused half of the universe’s population to simply disappear, including all of you, but his plan to ‘re-balance’ the universe hasn’t worked out so well on Earth. Naturally, those of us left weren’t too keen on just adjusting to the fact that half our loved-ones were suddenly gone, but what could we do? For the first year, we—”

“How long has it been?” T’Challa interrupted.

“Five years,” she answered, and Bucky suddenly felt cold. 

He thought of Steve watching him dissolve—watching him fall away for the second time—and wondered what toll five years had taken on Steve. When they’d been reunited just that morning—no, Bucky corrected his thoughts, five years ago that morning—Steve had smiled and embraced him, but Bucky saw right away how hard the previous two years had been on his friend. As Bucky had recovered with Shuri’s help in Wakanda, Steve had been living as a fugitive. On the few short visits Steve had managed to make, Bucky had tried to convince him to stay in Wakanda, but he’d always said,  _ There’s too much work to be done.  _ Steve instead asked Bucky to join him when he was ready, but Bucky stayed. He  _ wasn’t _ ready to go back to living on the run, fighting all the time, always tired, always watching your back. In Wakanda, Bucky had found that the pastoral life suited him. He thought one day Steve would get tired. One day Steve would come work the fields with him and they’d sit up by the lake at night, sharing homemade honey mead and playing cards on the dock. He’d believed that Steve would come eventually, but when he saw his friend come out of the Quinjet that morning, his gait and eyes revealing to Bucky more than anyone else could see, and Bucky suddenly felt selfish. He should have joined Steve when he’d been asked. He should have known that Steve wouldn’t rest; he wouldn’t retire to the Wakandan countryside. Bucky should have been by his side as soon as Shuri had given him a clean brain of health. 

“Everybody assumed,” Shuri continued, “that Mr. Stark had turned to ash as well, but a year later, he showed up with a...robot-lady...named Nebula. They’d been stranded on Titan after the incident. Titan and half its population was restored by Thanos, which I guess complicated things for Mr. Stark and Nebula, but together they managed to steal a ship and make it back to Earth. Everything changed once Mr. Stark returned. The Avengers got back together, and we all started working on a plan to go back to Titan and restore the universe.” Shuri laughed. “But it wasn’t as easy as all that. Things on Earth were tough. It’s not like you can suddenly dissolve half the population and things will just continue on normally.”

“How is Wakanda? How are the people?” T’Challa asked.

They entered a large room on the upper-most floor. This was clearly some sort of lab. It was a mess of half-assembled computers, dirty dishes, nests of coloured wire, and tons and tons of weapons. There was barely a clear surface. Even the walls were wallpapered with blueprints and sketches. Bucky had been in several of Shuri’s pristine, organized labs when she’d been working on reprogramming his brain, but this didn’t feel like her M.O. 

“Hey Shuri,” called a rough voice from the corner. “Have you seen my—” Rocket crawled out from under some sort of canon-like object and his mouth fell open.

“I am Groot!” the tree exclaimed, and crossed the room in seconds using all four limbs that seemed to extend and wrap like vines, until he reached the awe-struck racoon and whisked him up into a...hug? Bucky entirely sure, but he felt fairly confident that Groot was happy since he seemed to have sprouted several new leaves. 

“Of course I’m not dead, you idiot!” Rocket was saying as Groot tossed him from branch to branch ( _ limb to limb?  _ Bucky wasn’t familiar with the lexicon of tree people). “You’re the one who was dead, again! And this time you didn’t even leave a twig!”

“I am Groot.”

“I’m not a dumbass. There’s no way I’d go skipping back into a fight with Thanos. Besides, I got a good deal here.”

“I am Groot.”

Bucky felt something tug at his metal arm. Shuri’s hand was small on the dirty vibranium. It was the first time he’d really looked at her since their reunion. She looked older. Not just the five years older that was expected, but something deeper. “Come,” she said. “We’ll let them catch up.”

They went back down a floor now, and Bucky realized that the reason the hallways were so dim was because the compound was on emergency backup power. The main lights were dead. The building was actually eerily quiet. Most buildings, even houses, have a low hum of refrigeration, or heating and cooling, or computers. The compound was silent.

“Wakanda fared much better than many other countries,” Shuri continued. “Our people are fed, and we are protected from raiders. We have made some...difficult...decisions.” She stopped before a closed door and turned to look T’Challa in the eyes. “I know you will not agree with all the decisions we have made, but I beg you to remember that the circumstances were desperate. Mother and I have lead the people with M’Baku. Ironically, for the first time in history, the tribes are united. You left a lasting legacy when you called all the tribes to The Battle of Vi—” Shuri stopped mid-sentence and her eyes grew wide as she seemed to remember Wanda standing with them. “Apologies, Miss Maximoff. This will come as a surprise. History has named the battle we fought here five years ago The Battle of Visioning.” Wanda visibly shuddered, but she held it together. “It is partly due to your Vision’s role and the ultimate loss of the Mind Stone, but it’s also because it was here that Thanos realized his vision of re-balancing the universe.”

“And where is Vision’s...body?” Wanda asked lowly.

“Intact and preserved,” Shuri said. “On one of the lower levels. We cannot revive him without the stone, but his body does not decompose, and we’ve made sure it’s well protected.”

“May I see him? Later?”

Shuri nodded. “Of course.” Then she opened the door and they entered what was obviously Shuri’s lab: ordered, clean, and organized. Shuri waved her hand toward a seating area, and they all settled as Shuri brought a jug of water and glasses. 

“What about the Avengers?” Bucky asked. “Tell us about the mission.”

Shuri perched on the arm of the chair her brother was sitting in. “Stark and Nebula had done several months of reconnaissance and information gathering before they departed from Titan. They knew roughly where to find Thanos on the planet, and had even recruited some help from local dissenters. It took us several years to retrofit the ship they’d commandeered with the necessary weapons, form a plan, and make connections with some key contacts along the way for assistance and support. Nebula and Rocket were key in those upgrades and connections. While the nuances of the mission run deep, the basics of the plan were simple: go to Titan, kill Thanos, use the gauntlet to restore the universe, and then destroy the stones. So—”

“But—”

“Except the Mind Stone,” Shuri added before Wanda was fully out of her seat. 

“The Infinity Stone Gauntlet is the most powerful tool in the universe,” T’Challa said. “How will they wield it?”

“Thor was confident he could wear it and survive. If not, there was a back-up plan: the Hulk would wield it, although, we were less confident about his survival.”

“Natasha couldn’t have agreed to that,” said Bucky. “That is...did Natasha flake away or was she with them?”

Shuri smiled in a sad way. “She was not fully informed of Plan B. And yes, she remained after The Battle. The team that went to Titan consisted of Thor, Dr. Banner, Captain Rogers, Mr. Stark, Ms. Romanoff, and Nebula. They left several months ago. The journey to Titan is long. But today,” her smile changed to wide and bright, “your reappearance tells us that they’ve succeeded! The universe is restored!”

T’Challa put his arm around Shuri and squeezed her, matching her grin. But Bucky couldn’t seem to share in their joy. He was careful not to even look at Wanda. 

“Tell me about the extraction plan,” Bucky said. 

Shuri’s grin faded. “Sergeant Barnes, every inevitability was considered. The ship was designed to transport them to Titan AND back. But there is no  _ extraction  _ plan. They will survive and return, or…” 

“I can’t accept that,” Bucky growled. He was on his feet and pacing. His metal hand clenched and released, clenched and released.  _ This was so like Steve _ . “If you’d thought of every inevitability, there would be a second ship prepped. There’s a whole second team back now. We should go after them. They might need back-up.”

Shuri nodded knowingly and moved across the room to her desk. She plucked something small from the top drawer, and then crossed the room to hand it to Bucky. “Captain Rogers felt certain you’d feel this way. He left you a message.” 

Bucky gazed down at the small flash drive in his hand. He was caught between curiosity and pleasure at the thought that Steve had left him a message, and the compulsion to crush the drive with his metal hand. He knew what this message would say:  _ This is my duty, Bucky. Don’t come after me, Bucky. I’m an idiot with a death-wish, Bucky.  _ The last thought was sobering. Bucky rolled the drive between his fingers and wondered if Steve  _ really did _ have a death wish. Time and history had not been kind to him, and what did he have left to live for when he’d boarded that ship and blasted off to Titan? Peggy was several years dead; he’d been living as a fugitive, betrayed by the institution and country that he’d sacrificed everything to serve; and while Bucky was technically alive, he was just a shell of his former self—a ghost of James Buchanan Barnes intertwined with HYDRA’s Winter Soldier and a lifetime of trauma and regret. Steve never really got Bucky back. Then, add five years of destabilization on Earth, probably punctuated by a lot of conflict (Shuri had said that Wakanda had fared well, but five years ago this compound showed no signs of decay, was fully powered, and was abuzz with activity—if this was one of the better outcomes of the last five years, what had happened on the rest of the planet?). Bucky wondered if maybe Steve really did go to Titan with a death wish. There was so little reason for him to return…

“Is there somewhere I can…”

Shuri nodded. “I’ll show you to a room. You must want to get cleaned up.” She was addressing both Bucky and Wanda now. “I know this must be strange. Only moments ago you were all fighting a great battle, and now, the world is very different. You are both still needed here.” She looked at T’Challa. “And we have much to discuss.”

  


In a small, quiet room in the underground portion of the compound, Bucky stood under a luke-warm shower and scrubbed his body clean of layers of dirt, gunpowder, and blood. Steve had been bleeding when he’d last seen him, and Bucky had been startled by that. It took immense force to break Steve’s skin, but there he’d been, facing off hand-to-hand with Thanos with no thought that perhaps Thanos was stronger, that perhaps Steve wasn’t invincible, and that perhaps Steve couldn’t actually heal from every injury he sustained.

Bucky looked down at his own body, cataloguing the fresh bruises and cuts. Unlike Steve, Bucky’s body kept deep wounds in the form of scars. He’d always wondered if HYDRA had designed their serum that way, so that their soldiers were imperfect and ugly, and thus, disposable once their purpose had been served. Everytime Bucky went into the freezer, he wondered if they’d bother to wake him again. He mostly hoped they wouldn’t.

It wasn’t lost on Bucky that Steve’s body had healed every mark Bucky had ever left on it: several bullet wounds, knife cuts, and the deep ruts left from his metal hand pummelling Steve’s face. And yet, there wasn’t a single scar on Bucky’s body that Steve had put there. Somehow, that felt like a metaphor for their friendship, but not one Bucky wanted to linger on for very long. 

He put on the soft cotton tunic and slacks Shuri had provided, and then sat at the table to lubricate and shine his arm. This arm was designed for him by Shuri, and it’s importance went much deeper than she probably realized. His old arm, the one forged to be a weapon, lay lifeless in a forgotten bunker in Siberia. When T’Challa had first brought him the new arm, Bucky had internally decided that he would don it again for the battle, but if he survived, he’s ask Shuri to detach it and put it back in storage. He did fine with one arm. However, he quickly realised that this arm was designed differently: firstly, it was warm. His old arm had a massive cooling system installed to counteract the heat produced by the rudimentary cybernetics, and the cold radiated into his chest and down his spine. Bucky had been cold for all his years as The Winter Soldier, until the blinding heat and pain of Stark’s blast that ultimately severed Bucky’s arm and the last thing tying him to HYDRA. The vibranium made Shuri’s gift stronger than his old arm, but also much lighter, so his back and neck weren’t constantly straining to carry it. His old arm buzzed and made grinding noises, but this one was nearly silent. He noticed, for the first time in the small, quiet room, that it made a low humming sound that wasn’t unpleasant. The scales slid smoothly over one another without pinching, so he could carry delicate items or safely touch human skin. Most importantly, this arm had never hurt Steve Rogers. 

Despite the differences, Bucky still found himself struggling with wearing the new arm. He looked up at himself in a mirror hung across the room, and what he saw was The Winter Soldier, not Bucky Barnes. He resolved that he would still ask Shuri to uninstall it as soon as she was able to find the time.

He moved to the couch and plugged the drive into the thin tablet Shuri had also included in his “get-yourself-back-together” package. Immediately a window popped up:  _ Play video message? Okay or cancel? _

He took a deep breath and held it for a moment, then released and hit  _ Okay.  _

Steve’s face appeared on the screen, concentrating at first, and then looking up at the camera and smiling. “Hey Buck.”

The cuts were healed and his face was clean and fresh. He’d kept the beard, which pleased Bucky. He hadn’t aged a day, of course, but Bucky saw exhaustion in his eyes and in how his smile didn’t quite seem genuine. 

“Welcome back. If you’re watching this video, you’ve been brought up to speed, so, this is the part where I try to convince you not to mount a rescue mission to Titan. Except, I’m not going to do that.” He smiled for real this time and dipped his chin for a moment before looking back up at the camera. “Truth is, I think we’re probably in over our heads with this one. I really like the idea that you and Sam might be coming to get us, because I don’t think we’re gonna be in great shape when this is all over. So, if you can find a way, please do it. Except, I know you can’t. I know that when you put it all together, like we did, you’ll see that Earth doesn’t have the resources to mount this kind of rescue mission. We were lucky Tony brought back the tech that he did, or we wouldn’t have had a chance. But, uh, just to keep you from spinning out, there’s something you should know:

“I want to come home. I think you know how stubborn I can be when I want something.” He laughed. “Remember that time when I decided I wanted to learn how to pitch? You tried so hard to teach me how to throw a fastball, but I just couldn’t do it. Then I tore my rotator cuff and you said, ‘That’s okay Rogers, you can play Catcher.’ Turned out that was a bad idea, too. Anyway, sorry, I’m getting off track. I just mean to say that, I can throw a mean fastball now, even if I had to undergo an experimental procedure to get there. I’m approaching this mission with that same determination, because if I don’t get to come home at the end, what’s the point in going, right? I mean, we gotta save the universe, sure, but…”

He took a deep breath and Bucky mimicked.

“I’ve...been really lonely these last few years. I’m lucky to have Natasha, and Tony and I have patched things up, and I’ve made some great friends in Wakanda, but without you and Sam, I feel like I’m missing a lung. Especially you, Buck. I just...I just got you back, and you were making such progress in remembering everything and finding your old self again. I’m sorry I wasn’t around more. I wasn’t always sure if I was helping or hindering….

“Anyway, one way or another, I’m going to come home. If you could...do some good while you wait, that’d be great. Wakanda could use a man like you to help rebuild, and I’m sure shit is going to go sideways yet again if we actually pull this off and restore everyone. They’re gonna need strong leadership. Not  _ just  _ Wakanda, but the world.” Steve rubbed his face and shook his head like he was already discouraged.

“Take care of Sam. I’ll see you soon.”

The screen went blank.  _ Replay?  _ asked a pop-up window. 

Bucky leaned back and hit  _ Replay.  _ He watched the video three more times. He watched every minute movement around Steve’s eyes and lips. Counted the seconds of Steve’s sigh. Looked for dirt on his fingernails when Steve’s hand came up to touch his face. This was Steve, though, and everything he said was the truth. No matter how many clues Bucky searched for that maybe Steve was under stress, or duress, or even straight out lying in order to protect him, he knew that this was really what Steve wanted of him, and if Steve said there were no options to get to Titan, then Bucky believed him. Steve’s unwavering honesty to Bucky was one of the few constants in his life.

Bucky took a long look at the last still-frame of Steve’s face before the recording cut off. His lips were slightly parted and his eyes a little creased, and Bucky shook his head and snorted, because he could tell Steve was looking for the  _ Stop  _ button and couldn’t find it.  _ What a beautiful idiot,  _ he thought. Bucky put the tablet with his neatly folded battle clothes and headed back out into the compound. 

There was work to be done. First things first: _ where was Sam Wilson? _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned: this chapter has some pretty graphic descriptions of Steve in bad, bad shape. If you're triggered by people being badly injured, you may want to steer clear of this story.

Bucky ran. He ran across the Wakandan countryside faster than any land vehicle could keep up on the uneven ground, if they’d had the fuel to be running a vehicle. The call had just come in over the radio. “Bucky, we got three ships,” came Sam’s voice, cracked and distorted by the distance. Bucky immediately dropped the arc-torch in his hand, and made brief eye contact with the three other men on his team. “Go!” they all said, and so Bucky started running.

It had been 26 days, and while every morning Bucky swept through the Comm Room to check if any space activity had been picked up overnight, Bucky had been kept busy in the chaos that ensued after the Earth—and the rest of the universe, they all assumed—had been put right. The unstable balance that had been achieved in the five years after the Visioning was thrown into anarchy once again when long-gone leaders reappeared and demanded back what was  _ rightfully theirs.  _ It was much like it had been after the Visioning, but worse, according to everything Bucky had read in order to catch up. Everybody wanted power, and a time of destabilization was the perfect time to grab it. Old regimes turned up with new agendas in disordered democracies; underground cells stirred up dissent and fear; bigger countries invaded smaller countries in a bid to control resources; international conglomerates traded land, people, and assets without ethics boards to keep them in check. In in the streets, from third-world to first-world countries, racism and caste-tension flared. The folks who had lived through the last five years were not about to step aside and let things  _ go back to they way they were _ , but those who had been gone but a single moment by their perspective were certainly not going to give up everything they felt was theirs but had since been redistributed. In short, the world was at war: a hundred-thousand conflicts from neighbours to world leaders, and luckily, nobody had quite gotten organized enough to start building armies and launching missiles. Yet. 

In Wakanda, the Tribes were fighting again, but some groups had the vision to recognize that if the neighbouring countries went to war, Wakanda would be left largely unfortified. The protective shroud that had once hidden Wakanda from the outside world hadn’t functioned since shortly after the Visioning, when in a bid to hoard resources, Kenya re-routed the water from Lake Turkana that fed Ethiopia’s largest hydro dams and effectively started a resource-war. Nobody was quite sure who bombed the dam in the end, or what they were hoping to accomplish, but the resulting surge fed back into Wakanda’s powernet and blew out every module on the Western side of the country. Stark Industries, which thanks to Pepper Potts had done well after the Visioning by supplying alternative energy resources to the world, was supplying Wakana with several arc-reactors, but repairs to power the whole country again hadn’t been completed yet.

Bucky had spent the last 26 days leading a long-range team that was moving from module-to-module to repair the shroud. It was their best line of defense as the world-powers continued to ramp up their conflicts. Before accepting the task, he’d asked Shuri to remove his arm, but she'd convinced him to reconsider, arguing that he was best suited to lead one of the long-range teams, and that his arm (being made of vibranium) was actually the perfect tool for working on the unstable vibranium-powered modules. He relented. Shuri had created the arm for him with no expectation of return, but if he could use it to do some good for Wakanda in a time of need, he sure as hell wasn’t going to say no. He felt the emotional weight of it, but also felt solace that it was being put to good use—for once, not a weapon but a tool.

Bucky stopped to drink from a stream, and then looked to the sky. In the distance, he saw three black shapes descending rather quickly. They would land at the compound. 

“Sam, ETA?” Bucky spat into the handheld radios they’d been using. He felt like he was back in the 1940s again, except this type of old technology had been imperative when the satellites started going down and the web was compromised.

“Ten minutes to the surface,” came the answer. “What’s your ETA?”

Bucky looked to the horizon. They’d been in the bush for three days. “I’m a few hours out unless you can send me a lift.”

“No can do, buddy.”

“Well, then I guess you’ll have to find somebody else to give you a piggyback to the landing pad.”

“Shut-up, Barnes. Unless you suddenly see me growing pigtails, there ain’t no way I’m letting you carry me again. I’m may be crippled, but I still have standards for my chauffeurs.” 

Bucky smiled. Sam was funny. He understood why Steve liked him so much. Since Bucky had trotted out to the battlefield to find Sam 26 days earlier, they’d actually had time to get to know one another. Their mutual concern for Steve, and Sam’s unfortunate immobility, had hastened their growing friendship along. Sam had broken both his ankles when he reappeared; he’d been in the air when he’d first dissolved, and when he came back to the world, he was disoriented just long enough to screw any hope of a decent landing. Bucky found him lying in a ravine with his little robot-bird, Redwing, on his stomach, trying to make repairs so he could send a message for help. Bucky hadn’t given Sam much of a choice when he slung the man over his back and carried him to the compound, not kicking, but certainly screaming his distaste. 

“Well, better get started on those stairs then. Let’s see which one of us makes it to the landing pad first. I’ll be there by sundown. Bucky out.” 

He ran hard to ignore the building questions in his mind. He’d wanted to ask Sam if he’d had contact with any of the ships. Was Steve on board? Was he injured? What about Natasha? Were the stones destroyed? Did they have the Mind Stone with them? Was Thanos dead for certain? But he knew he couldn’t handle hearing the answers until they were in front of him, so he summoned all the super soldier he had within him, and he ran.  

 

The sun had disappeared behind the mountains by the time Bucky reached the compound. Long shadows fell over the grubby concrete pad, but Bucky barely gave the three mismatched ships a second glance. He paid enough attention to note that one was big and black, one was smaller with blue and orange, and the third was very small and looked more like a junk heap than a spaceship. There was nobody on the tarmac. 

Bucky ran down into the compound, knowing they would have ushered the team to the Medical Bay immediately. Fifth floor, subterranean sector. 

Natasha was in the hallway outside the ward, and when he came around the corner, she greeted him with a blazing smile. As a rule, Bucky didn’t hug, and neither did Natasha, he was pretty sure, but he allowed it when she grabbed his biceps with her hands and squeezed.

“It’s good to see you,” she said. She didn’t remove her hands.

“Is he alive?” Bucky felt the one-mindedness of his past programming fueling him beyond pleasantries. He needed to fulfil his mission before anything else, and his mission was Steve.

She hesitated. “Yes.” The word sounded strange. He heard everything she wasn’t saying, and like a switch, The Winter Soldier was taking the reins. He started to push past her, and when she tried to block him, he somersaulted her backwards to the floor with ease, the heat in his arm and on his skin rising. “Bucky, wait!” He didn’t slow down.

He didn’t slow down when he entered the room, nor did he pause when a dozen faces looked up at his arrival. He didn’t hear their words or warnings. None of them were Steve. He passed between them, and if any of them grabbed him, he didn’t feel it. Through the main bay and toward the Emergency Suite he walked deaf and blind to everything but finding his best friend. There was a set of doors at the end of the bay. Steve was behind those doors, he had to be. The Emergency Suite was the last room in the med bay. The end of the line. 

Bucky walked through the doors and saw his best friend laid out on a gurney. All the heat left Bucky’s body. It was like the days before: the days with his HYDRA arm, before he saw Steve on the bridge and a little spark ignited within him. The cold days. 

A flurry of doctors and nurses hurried around his friend, but Bucky looked right through them. Steve was dead-still on the bed. He was intubated. The whoosh of the ventilator forcibly pushing air into his lungs was the only sound Bucky could hear. Every inch of visible skin was burned. Third-degree. The sleeve of his uniform’s left arm was missing, burned away and ragged at his shoulder. The nurses had cut in a straight line down the centre of his uniform, exposing his tender, broiled chest beneath: deep red and charred black. Like the HYDRA symbol. Like Johann Schmidt had finally got his pound-of-flesh from Captain America.

Bucky tried to take a breath in, but his lungs were frozen solid. He stumbled forward. The doctors and nurses parted before him, and for a moment, the harried movement in the room came to a halt. Bucky stood at the edge of the bed with his hands hovering over Steve’s body. He wanted to touch him. He wanted to stroke his forehead or hold his hand, to do things he saw families do for sick loved-ones on television...but he couldn’t find a patch of unburned skin. 

“No...nononono…” he whispered, involuntarily. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t fair. Steve was supposed to be waiting for him with a bruise on his jaw and a grin. Bucky was going to call him a  _ punk _ and then clap him on the shoulder and Steve would pull him into a hug, and then Steve would tell him all about his space adventure and Bucky would call him an idiot but secretly wish he’d been along for the ride. But  _ this.  _ This was Bucky’s nightmare. He couldn’t rescue Steve from this. 

He stared at Steve’s face, swollen and mangled with crimson boils. His perfect eyelashes were burned away. His beard was blackened and missing in patches. His lips stretched around the collar of the intubation tube, and that wasn’t right, because Steve should be spitting sassy comebacks at Bucky, not breathing through a tube. 

“Sergeant Barnes.” The voice was far away. Bucky didn’t care about other voices. If it wasn’t Steve’s voice, he didn’t want to hear it. “The medical team needs to keep working.”

“Fuck off.” Bucky wasn’t sure who he was addressing and he didn’t care. His hands still hovered indecisively over Steve’s broken body, as if he could heal these wounds if he channelled enough  _ hope _ and  _ please _ and  _ for fuck’s sake _ through his hands and into Steve. 

“You don’t have to leave.” It was T’Challa’s voice. “Just step back and let them work. Nobody will make you leave.”

Some rational part of Bucky’s brain thought that sounded reasonable, and his feet took several steps back, even though he didn’t remember telling them to move. The doctors and nurses rushed around him and continued to work. Bucky stood still. He became like a piece of inert equipment in the room, just watching his friend live or die, he wasn’t sure what side was winning.

It must have been hours that Bucky stood there, but his own perception of time ceased to function. The doctors cut off the rest of Steve’s uniform and left it in pieces under the gurney; they dressed his body with ointments and clear squares that looked like flattened jellyfish; they glued the places were the burns had split into gashes; they hooked up dozens of tubes and wires that attached at his arms and throat; they brought in some sort of blue-light machine that was supposed to help regenerate skin; they pushed clear solutions into the clear bags that attached to the clear tubes that fed underneath Steve’s mangled, blackened skin, until finally, there seemed to be nothing more to be done. They dimmed the lights and left Steve under large, blue umbrella lamps. A nurse hovered constantly, checking vitals and adjusting the machines. The ventilator pulsed on. Bucky just stood there. He wondered if Steve was in pain. He wondered if the pain of Steve’s skin felt anything like the pain in his own chest. At some point, he realized that he wanted to weep, but he didn’t know how to start.

 

The sun was coming up and Bucky Barnes had questions. A timer went off in his head, and suddenly he couldn’t stand still any longer. He pushed back through the double doors into the main ward and found the remainder of the Avengers and many unfamiliar faces (and species) spread on the beds and chairs throughout the room. Nobody was sleeping. Nobody looked badly injured. It was clear they’d been holding vigil—perhaps for this moment.

“What the hell happened!?” Bucky screamed. 

It’s not like he was expecting them all to stand and start explaining, but the long silence that followed only served to enrage Bucky further, and he threw his fist toward the closest wall. The power that fueled his vibranium arm easily fractured the concrete wall, and a blossoming of cracks exploded from the deep crater at the centre. He pulled his hand away, looking down at the bits of concrete stuck to the metal. His chest heaved, but still nobody talked.

Then: “This man is angry.” Bucky looked to his left, where a motley gathering of definitely-not-humans sat on a bed and in a few chairs. The man who spoke was huge and blue, covered with red tattoos, and his neutral face was studying Bucky’s carefully. “Is he a friend or enemy?” the man asked. “Perhaps we should restrain him. I believe I could overpower him.” All his muscles tensed and he leaned forward, but a pale lady with huge eyes and antennae gently slid her hand onto the blue man’s forearm and he relaxed.

“He’s a friend, Drax,” said a familiar voice. Bucky turned to locate Stark, who was sitting on one of the beds across the room in an ugly tracksuit. “And he’s got every reason to be angry.” 

Some parts of Stark's words didn’t make sense. The last time he’d seen Tony Stark, Bucky and Steve had been fighting the rage-blinded Stark who was specifically attempting to kill Bucky.  _ And now they were friends?  _ A bewildered-looking teenager sat beside Stark, and leaning on the wall beside them was a man dressed like, for all Bucky could figure, a magician. His red flowing red cape outdid Thor’s usual wardrobe.

Thor, for his part, was sitting on a different bed beside the always frumpy-looking Dr. Banner. The two of them were shoulder-to-shoulder, hands clasped in their laps and feet dangling, like a pair of brothers waiting to be scolded. Natasha hovered at the window behind them, but she didn’t look Bucky’s way. 

Bucky scanned the rest of the room. Sam was sitting at a table just behind him, his arms crossed. He grimaced and nodded at Bucky when they made eye-contact. Rocket and Groot were at the same table; Rocket was tinkering on something mechanical, and Groot seemed to be playing on a tablet. Between them and the blue man was a heavily-armed human in a trench-coat. He stood with his arms crossed, but he seemed distant and disoriented. 

“The fault is mine,” said Thor, standing and making direct eye-contact with Bucky. “It was my duty to wield the gauntlet, and I failed.”

“Is that what happened?” Bucky yelled. “You let him wear the gauntlet. How—”

“Hold on there, Robocop,” Stark interrupted. “Nobody  _ let _ Rogers do anything. He put that thing on all by himself. We had a plan and he decided to be a hero instead.” The venom and betrayal in Tony’s voice was clear-cut, but Bucky was too wound up to recognize the other man’s emotion. 

“And where were you?” Bucky said, pointing at Thor. 

“I was engaged in battle with Thanos,” he said, shoulders slumping. “Banner and I...we...Thanos is a formidable opponent. Captain Rogers was thrown into the vicinity of the gauntlet. He put it on before any of us knew. I swear by the fallen throne of Asgard, I did not abandon Captain Rogers in battle.”

The man in the trenchcoat spoke up: “It’s not Thor’s fault your friend is reckless and can’t follow a plan.”

Bucky had him pinned against the wall by the throat before his next breath. The whole room was on its feet, and the man had a gun pulled from somewhere pointed at Bucky’s head, but it wobbled while he struggled for breath.

“You don’t know anything about Steve Rogers,” Bucky growled in his face. 

“Bucky!” Sam yelled. “Put the guy down! Take a breath, man!”

“Steve would be dead if it wasn’t for Quill!” Stark shouted. 

Bucky released the man named Quill, who fell to his knees coughing and breathing deep. “Jesus man,” he wheezed, “take a chill-pill. Damn. I see Earth still sucks as much as I remember.” He stumbled into the nearest chair and collapsed, rubbing his throat and glaring. 

Sam, wheelchair bound until his feet healed, was at Bucky’s side, gently pushing him toward a chair a few feet away.

“Sit down and let them fill you in,” he said firmly. Bucky complied. He dimly registered that Sam was the only person in the room he didn’t want to strangle. 

Tony talked. Of course, Tony always talked. “Thanos couldn’t just sit and enjoy the sunset like he’d planned. Of course the big raisin had to grab some more power and control some more lives. So, he made himself dictator of Titan, and that made the citizens like civic-prisoners, and when you have any race being subjugated, that breeds uprisings. So, we coordinated with the people on the ground and showed up during an annual “rally” where Thanos parades around in a fancy get-up and congratulates himself in the city centre while everybody pretends to like him. We had this intel, though, that Thanos couldn’t actually wear the gauntlet anymore because it destroyed his hand. That he wore a prosthetic instead, but kept the real gauntlet on him at all times.” Tony paced while he spoke. Bucky flexed his own prosthetic hand. “We went in, we thought we could over-power him with all of us, but the bugger’s still strong. We got the real gauntlet away from him, but it’s not like Thor could just disengage with Thanos mid-fight. Then Rogers skids across the plaza and slides the gauntlet on. I swear, there was nothing we could do. He just slid his pretty manicured hand in and then there was this bright light and Thanos just...disintegrated...in front of us. And Steve, he was...screaming…” Tony took a breath and shook his head. “Everybody re-materialized, and by some stroke of universal luck, Quill appeared within a few feet of Rogers. He got right in there and pried the gauntlet off Steve.”

“But, how—” Bucky started. 

“Because I’m half Celestial,” Quill said, his tone still harsh. “I can channel large amounts of energy through my body. It’s this whole thing with  _ the light _ , which is gone now, but you know, I’m still a conduit, you know?”

Bucky shook his head.  _ What was this guy on about?  _

“Anyway,” Stark continued. “Quill got the gauntlet off Steve and saved him from getting further barbequed. None of the rest of us could have gotten to him before…” Tony faded off, his voice soft and regretful. He seemed to go somewhere in his head, and Bucky knew enough about dark corners of the mind to know that it wasn’t anyway nice. 

The lady with the antenna had moved closer to Bucky, who was now leaning forward on his knees, staring at the ground. He couldn’t bring himself to look at any of the Avengers. He knew how things went awry in a battle; he knew how you could plan and strategize and think of every outcome but still things went haywire; Steve was one of the best strategists on the field during the war, and still their missions went sideways. Hell, that’s how Bucky lost an arm… He knew all this, but it was still hard to forgive the Avengers for what had happened to Steve. 

“Hey, at least he’s alive, man. That’s a win,” said Sam’s voice from close by, and he felt a hand on his flesh shoulder. 

“I think we should at least get some credit for actually restoring the universe,” said Stark. 

“But you failed to save his,” said a small voice beside Bucky, and he realized the hand on his shoulder was actually the antenna-girl’s. He looked into her over-sized eyes, tears spilling over her long lashes, and for a moment, Bucky thought this strange woman understood exactly how he was feeling. “You love him,” she whispered. 

Bucky nodded imperceptibly, unable to look away. “He’s my best friend.”

 

Bucky didn’t blame them, in the end, for what he knew was ultimately Steve’s choice, and not a choice that surprised him, either. He did blame them for abandoning Steve while he recovered, even though there seemed to be so many reasons they couldn’t stay. 

Stark was on a jet back to New York that evening. Apparently he and Pepper had twins a few years ago and after so many months away, he was eager to get back to his family. He took the wizard, Dr. Strange (something about returning to  _ a sanitorium? A sanctum? _ ) and the spider boy back with him. Bucky remembered Peter Parker from over seven years ago when he and Sam had duked it out with him in the airport. He liked the kid, and it was weird that he hadn’t aged, but then again, he’d been  _ disassembled  _ for five years. The kid was from Queens. He said that when his aunt found out he wasn’t actually dead, she was gonna kill him. 

Thor was off to Norway. Apparently after the fall of Asgard and in the five years after the Visioning, the surviving population of Asgard had resettled on Earth (being that half of Norway's population was gone and all the governments were destabilized, apparently it had been easy for them to move in). Thor was eager to get back to his people and see how things were since theoretically the Asgardians would have doubled in population when Steve reversed everything 26 days before. Thor explained that their relationship with the local Norwegians was mainly positive, but also complicated, considering that many of the locals still worshiped the old Norse Gods (of course, this suited Thor just fine, but apparently this caused some discomfort on the human side of things, not to mention a power-imbalance between the Asgardians and the local government). Thor literally sucked himself into the sky on a bolt of lightning and was gone.

Peter Quill was on his way to Missouri. He said he had family there, and it would be rude not to drop in. His companions, Drax and Mantis, were going with him, but Rocket wanted to stay in Wakanda and keep building weapons in the lab Shuri had set up for him. Bucky wasn’t sure why the tree chose to stay with Rocket. He just steadily announced, “I am Groot,” yet again, and Quill looked frustrated, but said something about checking in later. 

Natasha and Banner were apparently a couple now, not that Bucky could figure out that pairing in his head. He’d seen so many versions of Natasha over their years together: in the Red Room, over her years as a KGB contractor, and then again, working for the light side with SHIELD, and then betraying SHIELD and standing by Steve, before betraying Steve and standing by Stark, and who knew where her allegiances were now. Bucky wasn’t sure even she knew, but if the soft-spoken scientist made her heart flutter, who was he to judge. The two of them were choosing to stay in the compound, along with Sam and Wanda. Although, Wanda had locked herself away in a lower room since she found out the team had not returned with the Mind Stone. 

“We know that all the stones were gone from the gauntlet when Quill pried it off Steve,” Bruce had softly explained. “But we don’t know if Steve destroyed them or dispersed them. If he recovers, he might be able to tell us what happened.”

Wanda hadn’t said much. She’d disappeared to the lower levels and asked not to be disturbed. She refused to visit Steve. 

Bucky, on the other hand, couldn’t bring himself to leave Steve’s side. T’Challa made arrangements to have Steve moved from the large Med Bay in the lower levels to a smaller room with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the Wakandan countryside. Bucky was thankful for those windows. While the room had a big cushy chair beside the bed, Bucky couldn’t bare to sit, and while he needed to be as close to Steve as possible, he couldn’t bare to just stare at his broken body all day. So, he stared out the windows, over the fields where he and Steve had stood side-by-side and faced an alien army not long ago. Somehow, that had felt more manageable than this. Bucky wasn’t good at waiting. He wasn’t good at doing nothing. 

“He hasn’t survived like this for 26 days, has he?” Bucky asked Shuri when she came in to check the machines after everything had been moved.

“Oh no,” she said. “We had a stasis unit installed on the ship. Much like the one you spent time in while I worked on a solution for your brain. Ms. Romanoff informed me that they weren’t sure Captain Rogers was even breathing when they rushed him to the unit, but it was all they could think to do.” Shuri paused. “It was Mr. Stark’s idea to have the stasis unit on board.” 

Bucky nodded and watched the grasses below lean and bow in the breeze. 

“So, he’s not...conscious, right?” 

“No,” Shuri said as she adjusted something on a screen. The blue umbrella lights hummed a little louder. “He doesn’t feel any pain, I believe. Not now.”

Shuri joined him at the windows. She only came up to his shoulder, and yet Bucky was constantly surprised by her fierce little mind and generous heart. They had forged a trusting friendship over the two years Bucky had resided in Wakanda, and Bucky felt protective of her like she was his little sister. Bucky idly remembered that was the eldest of four, though he hadn’t thought of his own three sisters since he and Steve had been running with the Howling Commandos during the war. This was how is memory worked now. He hadn't remembered he was an older brother until a tenuous connection was suddenly made, and then it came rushing back. He wondered if they’d been happy after the war ended. Did they marry and live good lives? Did they think of their brother who died so long ago? Perhaps his youngest sister was still alive, but could he bring himself to see her old and infirm, and then watch her die, the way Steve had watched Peggy in her last years of life? Bucky shoulder-checked on Steve and quickly knew the answer. He was glad to have Shuri.

“Sergeant Barnes—”

“Shuri, before I dematerialized, I’d almost convinced you to just call me Bucky, but now you’re right back to that Sergeant business. I haven’t been Sergeant Barnes since 1945.”

She smiled. “Sorry,  _ Bucky. _ I want you to understand the extent of Captain Roger’s injuries.” She waited until Bucky steadied himself and nodded for her to continue. “Our doctors say that beyond the obvious damage to his epidermis, it seems that nearly all his nerve pathways have been badly damaged as well. His entire nervous system was essentially electrocuted by a massive surge of energy, and we simply don’t know if he’ll recover. I have read everything that has been written on Erskine’s serum, and while we know it enhances all metabolic, cellular, and chemical processes in the body, we must assume that even the serum’s effects has its limits. Bucky, you must prepare yourself that Captain Rogers may not heal.”

Bucky nodded. He heard the words, but he filed them away and ignored their meaning. Of course Steve was going to get better. There wasn’t another option. He’d survived the war, HYDRA, alien invasions, the fall of SHIELD, robot rebellions, and the confusing thing that was life in the 21st Century.  _ This wasn’t the end.  _  “Is there anything I can do? While we wait.”

“You could talk to him,” came a new voice. They turned and found Natasha leaning in the doorway. “That’s what I’m going to do.” She wandered in and curled into the big chair. Bucky watched as she reached toward Steve’s still hand, hesitated, and then just twisted the sheet between two fingers instead.

“I’m not sure he can hear you, Ms. Romanoff.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Can’t hurt, though, right?”

Shuri smiled her little grin again. “No, it certainly can’t hurt.” Perhaps sensing that they needed some space, Shuri nodded at both of them and slipped out of the room. 

For a long minute, only the sound of the ventilator filled the gap between them. 

Bucky turned and said, “I’m sorry about the…” He waved his fingers in a flipping motion.

“Already forgiven,” she said, smirking. “If I held a grudge every time you threw me around, we wouldn’t be friends now, would we?”

Bucky nodded and gave her a shallow smile, but he wasn’t sure what else to say. Shuri had promised him that the conditioning was gone—no one could recite a set of words and turn Bucky into a killing machine again—but The Winter Soldier still lived within him. The old Bucky Barnes would have never assaulted a friend like that, but to the Soldier, she was nothing but an obstacle to be removed, and he felt the shame rush through him. 

He wished she was angry, but Natasha was changed, just like everything else, again. Bucky was sure tired of going to sleep and waking up with years gone by, but at least Natasha had always been some version of the tough, sassy, hard-to-pin-down spy he’d first met in the Red Room. She was softer now though; something in her had shifted, but he hadn’t quite figured it out yet.

“Hey Steve,” she said in a gentle voice. “It’s Nat. Sitting by your bedside again because you’ve gone and done something stupid. Your boyfriend is here, too.” She looked up to enjoy the raised eyebrow she was obviously digging for. “He’s getting all broody and lame again, so you’d better wake up soon.”

“If this is what you’re planning to talk to him about, I’m gonna ask you to leave. Nicely. Once.” 

“Why do I have to be the one who leaves?”

“Because he’s  _ my _ —” Bucky snapped him mouth shut and glared, while Nat glowed. He knew that  _ best friend _ would just bait her to tease further, and he didn’t have the patience. Truth was, on some level, he considered Steve to be  _ his.  _ His *what* he wasn’t always sure. “Best friend” didn’t always seem the right phrase to encompass the kind of bond he felt with Steve. They  _ were  _ best friends, but they were also comrades in arms,  _ literally  _ partners in crime, the only two serum-based super-soldiers on this planet, and the last living vestiges of the 1940s. There was nobody else in the universe who both understood where Bucky came from, what he’d been through, and how hard it was to look forward at where he was going. Steve was his partner in _life_ , and Bucky didn’t want to go anywhere without him. “Alright, compromise,” Bucky said, sitting on the edge of the bed by Steve’s feet. “Why don’t we talk to each other. I’m still catching up on the last five years, plus you’ve got that whole space trip to tell me about.”

“You must get tired of always playing catch-up,” she said wistfully.

Bucky snorted. Natasha always surprised him with how perceptive she could be. “You have no idea.”

“Okay, then, why don’t you tell me about something from before. Tell me about pre-serum Steve. What was he like?”

Bucky grinned, and wondered where to start.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My deep apologies that it's been SOOO long between updates. I was away for most of the month of August, and I thought I'd be able to get a chapter up before I left, but life happened instead. However, I'm back and I'm in the swing of writing again. It won't be so long between updates again since I'm staying home allll winter! Lots of time to write!

Six weeks is a long time when you’re waiting someone to arrive but they’re already here. It was that sort of paradox that Bucky felt stuck in, and it was slowly killing him.

Bucky quickly decided that holding his self-imposed vigil for Steve was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. All those times HYDRA had wiped his brain, or he’d been injured on a mission, or even falling from the train—none of them really compared to watching Steve lifeless and hooked up to a ventilator. 

He dimly registered that some part of him always thought he’d say goodbye to Steve this way: waiting in a hospital room while Steve breathed through a tube. Pre-serum Steve was asthmatic and also had this bad habit of catching pneumonia, so every winter Bucky and Steve’s mother, Sarah, took turns caring for Steve. He shared this with Natasha one evening while she drank tea and he paced. He told her about the winter that Steve was so sick that he lacked the strength to even really cough, so he and Sarah would alternate holding him in a sitting position, his sweat-soaked chest leaning against theirs, just so he could weakly gasp at air. If they laid him back down he gulped like he was drowning in his own lungs. That was the winter that Bucky sold his father’s WWI medals to buy just a few doses of M&B 693, which was this new miracle antibacterial medication. He lied to Sarah about it. He always figured that she knew. Steve got better, and Bucky never regretted selling the medals. 

“Every winter was a nightmare, though,” he told Natasha. “I’d just wait for the day that Steve’s breathing would change, and he’d start to cough. Then we’d jump into action, getting the blankets and the garlic and the basins and—”

“Garlic?”

“Yeah, that stuff is potent. We’d spoon feed him raw garlic to push out the toxins through his skin.” Natasha started to laugh. “Yeah, I know  _ now  _ that it doesn’t actually work, but we didn’t  _ have  _ access to penicillin in the 1930s. Even if we did, Sarah couldn’t have afforded it. Anyway, I’m just saying that nursing Steve through those winters was a full-time job.”

“Sounds like you were a whole different kind of  _ winter soldier. _ ”

Bucky snorted, but a small smile crept across his face, too. “Yeah, guess I was.” It wasn’t far from the truth. Bucky had approached helping Sarah with Steve like a mission, even when he was just a young boy of nine or ten. His own mother had reservations about Bucky being near Steve when he was sick, but Bucky was strong and kept his hands clean, like Sarah taught him, and he never got more than a bad cold. Sarah was a nurse, and she taught Bucky how to nurse Steve. Bucky remembered, the summer that Sarah died, being afraid that he’d forget something important that she’d taught him. He worried that Steve wouldn’t survive the following winter because Bucky wasn’t the caretaker that Sarah was, even though Steve was relatively stronger then than he’d been when he was a child. 

“When Steve  _ did  _ get sick that winter,” he told Natasha, “it turned out that taking care of him was like breathing. Everything Sarah had taught me stuck strong. Plus, Steve was so damned determined not to die.”

“You might need to draw on those skills again soon,” Natasha said between sips of tea. “Do you really think Steve’s going to be complacent about being nursed by strangers once he wakes up?”

It was true that Steve was stubborn and prideful. So from that day onward, Bucky started paying attention to the truly skilled nurses and doctors who attended to Steve’s unconscious form. Soon, they let him assist, and it felt good to actually  _ do  _ something, even if it also made his chest ache. He helped change dressings and apply moist compresses. When they came to dress Steve’s charred back, Bucky was easily strong enough to hold Steve’s dead-weight sitting up and forward for as long as the nurses needed, keeping his head straight so to not disrupt the ventilator. And while the weight of Steve’s body was easy for Bucky to hold, the weight of the damage done to Steve was hard to bear. He matched his breathing to the ventilator and remembered all the times he thought Steve was going to die, but he pulled through. He always pulled through.

“His skin  _ is  _ healing,” he told Shuri one morning, “so he’s getting better.”

“It’s one thing for the body to regenerate skin cells, but there are many different types of tissues in the body,” she answered patiently. “Don’t forget, his spinal cord is damaged.”

“Are you saying he might not walk again?”

“I’m saying we don’t know.”

Outside of the little room where Bucky paced, the world kept on. Several nations on the African continent were at war; Wakanda was remaining neutral, but import and export had become a logistical nightmare. At the borders, thousands begged for refuge. T’Challa was struggling to turn away refugees, knowing that the country only had so many resources. Camps had sprung up along the edges of the dome-shroud, and where the shroud wasn’t functioning, Wakandan border patrol kept the camps from spilling over. Sam was working logistics from the Comm Centre, while Banner and Natasha spent many hours providing medical care to the citizens of the tent cities. Bucky knew he should be down there with them, or back on the border team repairing the modules for the shroud, but he could barely bring himself to leave Steve’s room. 

“You know, after Steve rescued the 107th, I was outwardly vocal about following Captain America anywhere,” he told Natasha one night. “Except, I was terrified. And I was having nightmares. It’s shitty to be the guy waking up screaming in a barracks full of exhausted soldiers, and no good at all if you’re headed out into the field. But Steve, right from our first night back at camp, it was like he knew. I’d wake up sweating and my heart beating like wild, but there’d be this steady pressure on my chest, and Steve would be sitting by my bunk staring down at me with those damned blue eyes and his hand would be on my chest, just soothing in small circles. He’d say, ‘Alright, Buck?’ and then of course I was alright. When we started taking field missions, he slept beside me on the ground, with his big hand resting on my chest, and I never once woke up screaming.” Natasha was smiling at Steve’s prone form as Bucky talked. “He was always there when I woke up, right until the day I fell. When I woke up again in a HYDRA lab, even through the brain-fog, I knew on some level that I’d really died, because Steve wasn’t there when I’d woken.” Bucky came to the bed and let his flesh hand hover over Steve’s chest. “I don’t want him to be alone when he wakes up.”

Natasha was grinning. “So, you’re telling me you spent the whole war sleeping with Captain America?”

Bucky scowled. He wasn’t going to give her the pleasure of a response, so instead he turned back to the windows, shaking his head. 

“In all seriousness,” she continued, “sounds like you two have always been on your own wavelength.” Bucky nodded. That was truth, regardless of her teasing. “I’m surprised you remember all that so clearly though. On those few visits here, back when we were all fugitives, Cap always came back from seeing you so…” She faded off, as if she wasn’t sure it was safe to continue, although Bucky suspected Natasha had said exactly enough to get what she wanted. Bucky was already finishing the sentence in his head:  _ disappointed; frustrated; disheartened; distant. _

Bucky spoke to the windows, but he watched Steve’s static reflection in the glass. “It’s easier to remember things that are tied to a strong emotion. I knew first that it was important I am here when he wakes up...and then the reason...the  _ memory _ ...comes after, if it comes at all.” Bucky sighed and turned to face Natasha. “Steve wanted me to remember all at once. He’d say, ‘Hey, remember that time when…’ and I couldn’t. Or pieces came to me, but jumbled up or without key bits of context. I hated to see his face when I couldn’t remember.” 

Natasha looked thoughtful for a long while. Then: “It tore him apart every time we moved on from here. He’d say he needed more time. And so we’d tell him to take it. Then he’d take off his gloves and hand them to Sam, and for a moment it looked like he was actually going to do it. But somehow I think it was as hard to stay as it was for him to leave you. He was wrestling with something back then. It got worse after The Visioning.”

Bucky catalogued that information in with the many things he wanted to ask Steve. Five years was a long time, even when you’ve lived over a hundred. How had his friend changed since Bucky had flaked away? Did he still need his old childhood buddy after all that time?

“I want things to be different when he wakes up,” he said.

“Then make them different.”

 

Four weeks into the wait, the pressure in the ventilator changed. Steve’s lungs were trying to suck and push air on their own. Natasha and Sam hugged when they heard the news, and Bucky gave Sam a fist-bump, which Sam had taught him earlier that week. Rocket had been hovering around the hallways that day, and when he heard, he came in saying, “It’s about damned time. I knew humans were fragile, but this is taking forever.” Then he handed Bucky something that looked like an electric beard trimmer. “Here. This should speed things up.”

It turned out to be a tiny, concentrated blue light, but whatever modifications Rocket had made, it coaxed the skin regeneration to nearly instant. The nurses let Bucky take the lead, since he had the time and they had other patients. Over the next three days, as the ventilator was slowly adjusted with less and less pressure, and as Steve’s lungs re-learned how to breathe, Bucky went inch-by-inch over Steve’s body with the handheld re-generator. 

At first Bucky was pleased to watch as fresh, tender skin materialized under the red blisters, but as Steve’s body started to look more “normal,” Bucky started to feel self-conscious about how intimate the treatment felt. He wondered if Steve would be comfortable with Bucky’s close-encounter with every inch of him. It felt non-consensual in some way, even though he knew Steve would rather have a friend care for him than a stranger.

For Bucky’s part, he felt a little confused about how often he was becoming distracted by Steve’s body. Bucky would be working on Steve’s feet, and his leg would shudder or twitch—nerves and neurons waking up, Shuri told him—and quite without realizing it, Bucky would be caught staring up the length of Steve’s perfect, muscular leg. It was hard to ignore that Steve’s body was beautiful, especially as Bucky’s work turned his skin back to clear and tight and toned. Skinny Steve had moles and freckles on his body, but these pretty little markings didn’t reappear when Bucky ran the re-generator over the spots they should have been. Bucky touched those spots with his flesh hand, rubbing tiny circles on Steve’s shoulders and hips and beside his belly button. He realized that he was the only person left on the planet who knew those spots used to be there, and not for the first time, it made him long for the days before the war, when Steve was small and Bucky was his protector and everything was so much simpler: get a job, find a girl, have some kids, be good to your family, but make time to grab a beer with your best friend every once in a while. None of those options were on the table for Bucky anymore. They could be for Steve, though, if that’s what he wanted—although the 21st Century seemed to have opened up a hell of a lot more life-paths than were available in the 1940s. If Steve did still want all that, where did Bucky fit? Would he be like Steve’s missing freckles, replaced by something new and fresh? Easily forgotten in the upgrade?

When the ventilator was finally disconnected, Natasha brought chapstick. Steve’s lips were dry and cracked, so she demonstrated how to apply some chapstick to a finger and then gently rub it on Steve’s lips. She was tender as she spread the sticky substance over the cracked skin.

“He’s got gorgeous lips, doesn’t he?” she mused. “Highly enjoyable, even though he has no idea how to use them.”

Bucky’s head snapped up. “You’ve kissed Steve?”

“Haven’t you?” she answered with a sly grin, but when Bucky’s serious face didn’t transform into a smile, she sat back down in her chair and put her feet up on the edge of the bed. “When we were on the run, just before the fall of SHIELD. Kept us from being noticed by some very bad men. You know how it goes. And I shouldn’t say he was an awful kisser. To be fair, I caught him unawares.” She seemed to go into her memory then, a tiny smile playing on her lips.

“I didn’t realize you and Steve were so close.” Maybe Bucky was referring to the kiss, maybe he was just making a general statement, he wasn’t sure. Did it bother him that Natasha had kissed Steve? He wasn’t sure of that, either.

“I trust him,” she said immediately, and Bucky understood what a big statement that was for Natasha to make. “During the fall of SHIELD, he had my back. He saved my life. Did he ever tell you that a bunker collapsed on us?” Bucky shook his head. “He must have broken a tonne of concrete with his body and that damned shield, and then somehow dug us both out. He carried me out of there. I knew then that he’d never leave me behind. I’d never felt that with anybody before.”

Bucky heard the unspoken part of that story: the man she loved, Banner, actually had left her behind, or rather, the Hulk had left. Bucky wondered about Natasha and Bruce. He saw that she loved him, but how did she trust him? Did she trust him the way she claimed to trust Steve? Did she live with the fear that Bruce would leave again?

“Then why did you side with Stark during the fiasco with the Accords?” Bucky regretted asking immediately. The sometimes uncontrollable part of him that was always seeking information, seeking to gain the upper hand like everybody in his life was an opponent, had superseded his compassion, but instead of snapping at him (as he expected), Natasha’s smile just softened. She scooped her feet off the bed and leaned forward, taking Steve’s limp hand.

“That’s the beautiful thing about trust. I knew that Steve and I could disagree but still have each other’s backs. He wouldn’t betray me, not in the ways that matter. And you know what happened in the end.”

“That’s the part I never understood. Why’d you let us pass?”

“Because despite my convictions about the Accords, ultimately I trusted that Steve knew what he was doing, and that he was right that you were worth everything he’d given up.” She looked up at him. “He was right, wasn’t he?”

Bucky looked away. 

“C'mere, Winter,” she said. Bucky grimaced at the nickname, but went around the bed as she slipped out of the chair that had been her perch for all these weeks, guiding him into it. She carefully passed Steve’s hand into Bucky’s. “Stop grinding a trough in front of the windows and just be with him.”

She left the room. The sun was setting over the fields, casting a golden light over Steve’s fresh skin, highlighting all the perfect rises and dips of his musculature. Bucky tried not to stare at his lips. He held his friend’s hand, keeping perfectly still, and wondered if he really had been worth it all, in the end.

 

Things got complicated, and Bucky wasn’t there when Steve woke up.


	4. Chapter 4

Things got complicated, and Bucky wasn’t there when Steve woke up. Two weeks passed quietly in the compound. Steve breathed steadily on his own. He twitched a lot. His eyes moved under his eyelids. Bucky applied chapstick. Bucky held his hand. Bucky paced at the windows and watched things get complicated below.

As Kenya and Ethiopia prepared to go to war with one another, the refugees at the border started getting restless, until finally, they started attacking the shroud.

“Barnes, we need you down here,” came Sam’s voice through the room’s intercom. “Don’t leave us hanging, man.”

Sam was back on his feet and back in the Falcon suit. Natasha was down there, too. Dr. Banner and T’Challa were working with the refugees’ representatives to come to a solution, but they needed more hands at the shroud, keeping it functional—something that Bucky had recently developed a speciality in. Bucky squeezed Steve’s hands and told the closest nurse on the way out to notify him of any change, no matter how small. He traded his cotton tunic and slacks for his kevlar and leather, letting his metal arm be fully exposed. This was not a battle. This was a mission to subdue. Restore order and look for solutions. Protect the integrity of the shroud. Nobody gets hurt, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t to his advantage to be just a little intimidating.

At the border below the compound, a row of Wakandan warriors stood behind T’Challa and Banner, who were kneeling in the grass with a man and a woman. The conversation looked tense, but calm, which was nothing like the chaos that was unfolding beyond the shroud. People were charging it, throwing things at it, striking it. The desperation behind the shroud was clear, and somewhere in there Natasha and Sam were trying to restore some order. Bucky knew his role. He went straight to work on the nearest module, opening up the panels and checking the power sources. He worked single-mindedly, buying T’Challa all the time he could to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. Bucky had seen this kind of situation before. Both parties were scared: the Wakandans afraid of being overburdened and the refugees afraid for their lives. He had faith that T’Challa would find a way.

It had only been a little less than an hour, and Bucky was on his fourth module and feeling satisfied that the shroud was in fine shape to hold against the onslaught, when his radio crackled on his hip.

“Sergeant Barnes, come in?” came Shuri’s voice. She was back to the formal title again. That was concerning.

“Barnes here.”

“Uhhh...could you come back to the compound. Rather quickly. Captain Rogers is awake, and...we need your assistance.”

Bucky was running back up the field before she’d finished the sentence. _Dammit, dammit,_ he thought. _It wasn’t supposed to be this way._ He sprinted up the hill and over the sun-bleached concrete. He careened up each level, dodging others coming down, and arrived to find a tight group of doctors and nurses gathered at the door to Steve’s room, but none were inside. Bucky didn’t bother to ask for entrance, he just pushed himself through forcibly, and came to stand beside Shuri just inside the door of the devastated room.

Every piece of furniture and equipment was knocked over, and the floor was a mess of scattered needles, trays, and other medical supplies. Several IV bags were leaking onto the floor. The bed looked like it had been thrown against the window and bounced half-way back. There were little drops of blood all over the white tile.

And in the corner, crouched with his arms spread wide and a hand on each wall, was a heavily breathing Steve Rogers. All he was wearing was a light pair of scrub-shorts tied at each hip, so it was easy to see that he’d literally ripped several IV tubes from his own arms and also stepped on several syringes, which would explain the blood. His eyes were open, but searching and not focusing.

“Steve?” Bucky called, taking a few steps into the room.

“We don’t think he can see or hear,” said Shuri. She had a big syringe in her hand. “We tried to sedate him, but…” She waved her hand across the room in explanation.

Bucky nodded and continued to creep slowly into the room.

“Steve, it’s Bucky. Can you hear me?”

Steve didn’t react in the slightest. He looked wobbly on his feet, like he needed the walls to hold him steady. He was breathing heavily enough that Bucky briefly wondered if he was having an asthma attack.

“Careful,” Shuri called from the doorway. “He’s somehow still very strong.”

_No duh,_ thought Bucky as he came with reaching distance of his friend. He wasn’t sure how to proceed. It was clear that Steve had no idea that he was there. He reached out his flesh hand towards Steve’s heaving chest, and as his fingertips brushed the new skin, Steve’s fist came flying toward his jaw. Bucky’s reaction was instantaneous. His vibranium arm flew up and caught Steve’s fist just inches from his face, but just as quickly, Steve’s other hand had Bucky’s metal forearm and was throwing Bucky’s whole body up against the nearest wall, his fist hand disengaging and going for Bucky’s throat. Then, he stopped. They breathed for a long moment while Bucky felt Steve’s hand gripping and releasing his metal arm, feeling the texture. He watched as Steve’s face changed from aggressive to soft, and he held still as his friend’s hand traveled down his metal arm toward his shoulder.

“Bucky?” Steve breathed, clearly in awe.

Steve’s hands were on Bucky’s face, cupping his jaw and running into his long hair. Bucky remained still, afraid to move both because he didn’t want to startle Steve and because the feeling of Steve’s hands on his face felt good. Bucky didn’t like being touched, but this was something different.

“It’s you,” Steve whispered. “You’re alive.”

Steve pitched forward, his whole weight landing against Bucky’s chest, and Bucky snapped his arms around the big frame to keep them from tumbling over. Steve’s arms clung around Bucky, and Bucky could also feel him trembling. The words tumbled out of him, too loud and slurred: “Shit, you’re here. You’re really here. I know it’s you. Bucky, I can’t see anything, or hear. But I still know it’s you. Thank god. Thank fucking god.”

“Language,” Bucky said automatically, but Steve didn’t hear him.

“Am I seriously alive? I thought that was the end. Shit. Wait, am I back on Earth?”

Bucky pressed his head against Steve’s and slowly nodded so Steve could feel the movement. He tightened his arms around him, too.

“Okay, that’s good. So good. Am I speaking really loud?”

Bucky grinned and nodded again.

“Shit.” Steve tried to adjust his volume, but it didn’t make much difference. “Are you okay?”

Bucky wished that Steve could have seen him roll his eyes. Of course Steve had just woken up deaf and blind, but he was still worried about Bucky.

“I am now, sleeping beauty,” Bucky said aloud, but also nodded against Steve’s head again. “You took goddamn long enough to wake up, you git.”

“Okay, okay…” Steve repeated, and then he faded to silence, while his body seemed to melt even deeper into Bucky’s. He felt Steve’s muscles relax and his breathing soften. They’d never held one another like this before. Bucky reveled in the feeling of Steve’s weight up against him. Steve shifted and pushed his face into Bucky’s collar, resting his lips on the side of Bucky’s neck. He inhaled, and Bucky shivered. “Sorry,” Steve mumbled, but he didn’t pull away.

Bucky decided that he’d stay like this forever, if that’s what Steve needed to feel safe.  

From the corner of his eye, he saw Shuri ushering the doctors and nurses away. Then she took a broom from the corner and quietly swept a path between the bed and their tangled forms in the corner. She righted a table and gathered some gauze, holding it up to make sure Bucky saw it. He nodded, and she slipped out of the room.

They held one another for a long time. Bucky loved the feeling of Steve’s arms wrapped around him, even though his whole body continued to twitch and tremble. Bucky drew little circles with his flesh hand on Steve’s bare back, and slowly, Steve’s breathing returned to normal.

“Damn,” Steve said after a while. “I never would have thought the smell of leather and vibranium would actually be comforting.” Bucky chuckled, and Steve could obviously feel it, because suddenly his muscles tightened. “Oh shit, are we alone?” Bucky nodded against him, and Steve relaxed again. He always was so easily embarrassed. “Where are we?”

Bucky scrambled to think about how he could communicate better. He looked around the room and saw something he could use. Slowly, he shifted Steve off of him and back against the opposite wall, but as he moved away, Steve grabbed his arm.

“Wait.” Bucky turned to look at Steve and saw his face go through a tumble of emotions. Some of Steve’s expressions reminded Bucky of a time long ago… “You’re my only point of reference,” Steve said, almost sheepishly. Bucky understood, and he slid Steve’s hand into his own, allowing him to reach far enough to grab the silver tray on the floor. He settled back against the wall beside his troubled friend, ensuring they were pressed shoulder-to-shoulder. Then, he put the tray in one of Steve’s hands and grasped the other in his own. Straightening Steve’s pointer finger, he slowly guided Steve’s hand to trace out W-A-K-A-N-D-A on the tray.

“That’s good,” Steve said. His head rolled against the wall in an odd way, and Bucky wondered if he was having trouble staying conscious. Not wanting to drag his unconscious body back to bed, Bucky stood and tried to drag Steve up by the hand, but Steve resisted. “No Buck, I can’t keep my balance. I think I knocked over some things on my way here. Oh shit, there were people, too. Did I hurt anyone? I was disoriented and people were trying to touch me. I didn’t hit anyone, did I?”

Bucky crouched and moved Steve’s hand to his jaw so he could feel when Bucky shook his head, and then before Steve could protest, he lifted him up by his armpits and then quickly spun around, pressing his back hard into Steve’s chest. He heard Steve make a little “oof” sound as the wind was knocked out of him, but Bucky was getting him back to the bed, and that was it. He wrapped Steve’s arms around him, one over his shoulder and another across his chest, and leaned forward so most of his weight was on his back. Steve didn’t say anything, he just held on as they slowly crossed the room. He was right about his balance. While Steve clearly had strength, he also clearly had no idea what was up or down. They stumbled back to the bed, and Bucky turned them so Steve could feel the bed behind him, and thankfully, he sunk back into it. Bucky pulled the blankets over Steve, and almost immediately, Steve’s head rolled to the side and he passed out. Not surprising, Bucky figured. It was pretty clear that Steve’s body was working hard and hadn’t figured itself out yet.

Bucky cleaned and wrapped gauze where Steve had forcibly removed his own IV. He put the room back together. He considered trying to manhandle Steve into some more substantive clothing (Steve was no prude, but he’d want more that a pair of short boxer-like scrubs on when everyone came to greet him), but he was afraid he’d wake him. Finally, he sat down in the chair with his radio to check in.

“Barnes to Wilson. Update?”

“Order restored, for the most part. T’Challa seems to have reached an agreement and the camp has settled down.”

“Can we get an update on Steve?” came Natasha’s voice.

“Yeah. He was conscious for a while. He sounds like himself, but…” Bucky sighed, because in the flurry of the last hour, he hadn’t had a chance to process this. “He can’t see or hear.”

The radio was silent for nearly a minute.

Then, from Sam, “I’m on way back up.”

“Same,” from Natasha.

Bucky looked over at Steve’s sleeping form. His hair was a mess, and quite without examining the impulse, Bucky was threading his fingers through it, putting it back in place. Then he stopped, and drew away, looking up to see if anybody had seen it. The action felt too intimate. Bucky wasn’t the one who should be touching Steve’s hair. That was something Peggy should have been there for, or Sharon, if that was still a thing. Bucky went back to the windows.

 

A half hour later, Bucky, Natasha, Bruce, Sam, and Shuri were huddled tightly just inside the door to Steve’s room. It reminded Bucky of the many evenings that Sarah and the neighbouring mothers would huddle just outside of the apartment, talking in low whispers about Steve’s condition. Usually one of the ladies had brought a broth for Steve, or perhaps something more substantial for Sarah. Even as a young boy, Bucky was suspicious of their intentions. Were they actually worried about Steve, or were they hoping the news was that the Rogers boy was on his death-bed, ridding the building of illness and thus keeping their own children safe. Bucky leaned on the bed by Steve’s feet, listening to the hushed chatter with his arms crossed, just like he had when they were kids.

“His body’s molecular structure is astounding,” Shuri was whispering excitedly. “His ectoderm and mesoderm are actually _regenerating_. This wouldn’t even be plausible in a regular human.”

Bruce added, “It also makes sense that his photoreceptor cells would be slow to regenerate, since neuroepithelial cells are so complex.”

“So, eye cells are hard to grow?” Sam asked.

“Precisely,” Bruce answered quietly. “Then again, it could be the optic nerve itself, which is mainly composed of retinal ganglion cell axons, so—”

“Just saying that eye cells are hard to grow is fine, man,” Sam interrupted.

“The point is,” Shuri whispered, “we have no way of predicting how his body will prioritize its cellular regeneration.”

“So,” Natasha whispered. “He’s likely on track for full recovery, but we don’t know when he’ll get his sight or hearing back?”

“Hey, guys,” Bucky said loudly, enjoying it when everyone but Natasha jumped. “Why are you whispering? He can’t hear you.”

Sam was the first one to start laughing, and then the tension in the room seemed to crumble as everybody descended into a fit of giggles. Bucky found himself not laughing, but grinning widely. There hadn’t been many reasons to laugh these last few weeks, and he liked seeing Bruce wrap his arm around Nat’s shoulders in a playful squeeze, and Sam lean forward holding his gut. Just as the moment settled, T’Challa appeared at the door and joined the group with a curious expression.

“I hope you’ll share the joke,” he said. Bucky always had a hard time getting a read on T’Challa. A small smile played on his lips, but Bucky felt thrown off by how rigid he kept his posture. T’Challa held himself to a high standard, and that came through not only in his actions, but also with how he held his body. Bucky originally thought T’Challa a little stuffy, but then he’d seen how playful he could be with Shuri.

“The moment has passed,” said Shuri, as she patted his arm. “But tell us, what was the outcome of your negotiations?”

T’Challa gave a long sigh. “We’re about to receive some house-guests.”

Over the next hour, T’Challa described the political situation that had resulted in Wakanda deciding to accept a large number of Kenyan refugees. Bucky wasn’t read-up enough on the last 50 years of continental African history to understand all the players and stakes, but the part he did understand was the a highly-organized separatist cell out of Uganda was moving across Kenya in a bid for ultimate power by employing an old WWII method that Bucky _was_ familiar with: scorched earth. The people on the borders of Wakanda had essentially been abandoned by their government, which was refusing to redirect what little military that was still functioning to deal with the hostile rogues while they were still engaged with the ongoing skirmish with Ethiopia over natural resources. The civilians had seen their livestock killed and crops burned, their houses raided and torched, and many of their loved-ones disappear, or worse.

“We must put aside our own fears and take these people in,” T’Challa explained. Bucky noticed he was careful not to look at Shuri. During the five years after The Visioning, many people had come to the Wakandan borders seeking refuge, but M’Baku and Ramonda (with Shuri’s support) had been conservative in allowing entrance, not wanting to put too much of a burden on the country during uncertain times. This had been a point of contention between T’Challa and his mother, and by extension, his sister. “We will all have to make sacrifices to support our countrymen. These people have nothing, and I cannot stand by and let them be slaughtered on our borders.”

T’Challa wasn’t kidding when he said they were getting house-guests. That very night, the shroud was being lifted to allow the whole camp to immediately move into the fields below and be safe behind the shroud, but then in the coming weeks, all the elderly, sick, or those with young children would be taking residence in the compound.

Bucky glanced over at Steve, who was still sleeping soundly, and he immediately started to calculate the increased risk that this development would create. An influx of unfamiliar people always meant risk, and Steve wasn’t in any shape to even communicate, let alone defend himself. Bucky was struck with an old feeling, something from _before,_ and it took him a moment to recognize it was _worry_ . This was different than the concern he’d felt every time they embarked on a mission together with the Commandos, or even in the few years before The Visioning, when Steve left the safety of Wakanda to go back on the run. That Steve— _Super Soldier Steve—_ could handle nearly anything thrown his way. But Bucky knew this feeling was from before, when Steve was skinny but feisty. When Steve would leave the house in the morning and Bucky would fret that the little bugger would pick a fight with the wrong guy that day. A punch too hard in the nose, a cut too deep, a knock on the head—little Steve might not of have survived. While Super Soldier Steve was still strong (he’d certainly proved that earlier), he wasn’t going to win a fight against anybody while he was deaf and blind.

Bucky fought the paranoid part of his brain that said there could be enemies in the midst of the refugees. He knew that it was unlikely, perhaps even ridiculous, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that Steve was so very vulnerable in this condition, and that stoked the ever-burning hearth in Bucky’s psyche that told him to _protect Steve Rogers at all costs._

“Sam and I will give up our rooms and move in here,” he said.

“We will?” Sam caught up quick. “Oh yeah, of course we will. Super-bros sleepover.”

 

Steve didn’t stir the whole time that Bucky and Sam dragged in their few belongings and fold-out cots into the room. They’d gently rolled Steve’s bed so it was against the far wall, giving him a solid point of reference for when he woke up, and then each cot was set up head-to-head in a sort of barrier between Steve and the door.They bumped and banged around while they rearranged the room, but of course, Steve couldn’t hear any of it.

“Wouldn’t this have been nice,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

“What’s that?” asked Sam.

“This. Steve sleeping soundly for once. During the war, he was such a light sleeper. Damn one of the Commandos that needed to piss in the middle of the night, ‘cause the moment he stumbled to his feet, Steve was awake and alert and ready. Drove me crazy.”

“So you’re a light sleeper, too then,” Sam surmised as he spread a blanket over his cot.

“Always have been. It’s a skill you develop quickly when your best friend has lungs that rattle like a rail-car all night. Then, the war didn’t help. Plus, I’m not sure The Winter Soldier was programmed to sleep when on a mission…” Bucky hadn’t meant to share that last part. Something about Sam made him feel comfortable talking about things he normally kept bottled up, but he still averted his eyes when he felt Sam’s snap up to meet his. “I’ve got one last thing to grab,” he said instead.

“Hey, will you grab Steve’s stuff, too?” Bucky gave Sam a quizzical look. “Floor 6, Section 5, Room 622. Apparently he kept some stuff here when he wasn’t at the Tower or the Warehouse in New York. I’m sure T’Challa’s people will want his room, too.”

Bucky nodded and trotted out of the room. Bucky headed straight down to his old room in a far corner of the compound where he’d left the tablet with Steve’s message plugged into it. Even though Steve was here now, a small voice kept suggesting that the video message was the last time he’d see Steve’s eyes focus up and look at him, making contact, even if it was through a camera lens and screen. _He’ll heal,_ he told the voice, but of course there was always the response. _Will he?_

The compound was alive with activity as everybody prepared for the incoming refugees, and there were lots of new Wakandan faces in the corridors. Bucky had striped off his leather outer-armour earlier, so he was only wearing a sleeveless black top with his black combat pants. He watched people’s eyes as they passed him, flitting to his metal arm and then away, never making eye contact and crossing the hall to keep their distance. _They never even look at my face,_ Bucky thought, as he wished he’d thought to throw on a tunic with long sleeves. When he was still Bucky Barnes, before his body and mind were imprinted with The Winter Soldier, everyone he met looked at his face. He had a handsome face. He had bright blue eyes that the ladies used to love and his buddies seemed to trust. But even his eyes were different now, he knew. Even if the folks he passed in the hall had pried their attention off his arm long enough to meet his eyes, he knew what they would find: a man with eyes that watched his own hands murder and maim with every dream-sleep, and eyes that knew the difference between dreams and memory.

Bucky paused at the door to his old room which he really hadn’t spent a single night in, and noticed how his vibranium arm was the same tone as the doorknob. Each both lifeless tools. No soul in either.

He slipped into the room and grabbed the tablet from its hiding place. Perhaps that’s why this video was so important. Before Thanos snapped his fingers, Steve was the only one who still looked at his face before his arm. Bucky was sure that Steve saw all the haunted-exhaustion behind his eyes, but maybe he still saw the _before_ , too. Steve knew Bucky Barnes, whereas the other Avengers only knew The Winter Soldier with his distance and his temper. He was sure Steve remembered how Bucky’s eyes used to laugh all the time, even though that time was far away now. And Bucky couldn’t bear to think that Steve might never really see him again; he was the only one who’d ever seen him in the first place. _He’ll heal. Will he?_

Bucky went the long route around to Steve’s old room, slipping through the quieter corridors with his head down and the tablet tucked against his chest. He felt a little thrill that Steve kept a room here, and without breaking his privacy, he wondered what he might learn about the five years Steve spent without him. But Steve’s room ended up being sparse. A tightly made bed. An empty desk. A toothbrush and a razor in the bathroom. In the closet, he found Steve’s stealth uniform from when SHIELD still existed, and like his other one, Steve had ripped off the star at the centre of its chest. He also found some more casual clothes: a few cotton Wakandan-style tunics and some pants, plus some combat-cargos and a few t-shirts. He rolled all the clothes up and was about to leave when he noticed something tucked into the upper corner of the closet: a backpack. Bucky pulled it down and unzipped it. Books. Three thick black journals tightly bound in elastic. Bucky smiled. These were sketch books, he was certain, but even when they were kids Bucky was careful never to peek at Steve’s drawings unless he was invited. Instead, he shoved the clothes and uniform in the backpack and headed back to his new shared room with Sam and Steve.

As he got close to the room, he heard a strange muffled noise that sounded a lot like, “...Aaaareesss!! Elp! —Arrrnes!!” coming down the hallway. Bucky broke into a run and followed the voice that was clearly Sam in a panic. He skidded around the corner, accidentally slamming into the door frame and cracking it. Then he stopped and gaped.

Steve was awake, and he’d somehow managed to pin Sam face-down on the ground. He had both Sam’s hands clamped awkwardly behind his back, and his other hand was smushing Sam’s face into the ground. And while Sam was slurring out wildly for Bucky, an oblivious and nearly naked Steve was calmly talking to his victim.

“I’m sure we know one another, but I just can’t tell who you are, so until Bucky gets here, this is the way it’s gotta be. I’m sorry. Especially if you’re a nurse, but you gotta understand that I don’t have a lot of information to go on here and it’s been a long five years. So, please just stay calm and…”

Bucky didn’t hear the rest because he was laughing too hard.

“--uck you, —Arnes! —Elp me! --op aughing, a-hole!” Sam spat out as best he could considering the circumstances. Bucky could have let the scene draw on forever. He loved seeing Sam disgruntled and bound by Steve’s muscular mass, and now that he thought about it, Steve’s muscular mass wasn’t bad either. He relented though, dropping the bag and strolling over to the two while Sam did his best to glare up at him.

Bucky ran his metal hand down Steve’s forearm to his wrist, and as soon as the cool vibranium touched him, Steve released Sam, standing up and gripping Bucky’s wrist fiercely.

“Bucky, I don’t know who this is. We need some ground rules if I’m going to be like this for awhile. You weren’t here, so I had no choice. Please say it’s not a civilian—” Bucky stopped Steve with a soft finger pressed to his lips, and he noticed that Steve needed more chapstick. Steve stopped talking, his lips and posture softening at the contact from Bucky. He led Steve back to the bed, and coaxed him to sit. “Buck, we gotta figure out some communication here.” Steve was still talking too loudly.

“Tell me about it,” Sam muttered, as Bucky pulled him off the floor and he shook himself out. He punched Bucky playfully in his flesh shoulder. “Thanks for taking your time, man.”

“Hey Sam, do you wear dog tags?” Bucky asked, thoughtful.

“Always,” said Sam, pulling them out from under his shirt.

“Here,” Bucky put his hand out and Sam pulled the tags over his neck before handing them over. Bucky wasn’t sure if this would work, but starting with basic identification of visitors for Steve seemed like a first step. He wrapped the chain around Sam’s wrist several times, letting the tags dangle. “New rule,” he explained. “We only make first contact with Steve by touching his wrist, and he’ll know you by these tags.” Sam nodded. Then Bucky turned to Steve again, grabbing a tray and his hand, and traced out S-A-M on the tray. Sam took the cue, and he reached out to Steve’s wrist, touching it gently, and then rolled his wrist so Steve caught the dog tags in his hand.

Steve glowed. “Sam.” He opened his arms, and Sam grinned too as he stepped into the embrace. Bucky had been jealous and cautious of Sam when he first met him during the conflict with the Accords, but now he was grateful Sam had been there when Bucky wasn’t. He enjoyed Sam’s dry sense of humour, and also how he called Steve on his often unreasonable risk assessment or behaviour.

When they’d broken the hug, Steve kept a grip on Sam’s dog tag wrist, and he reached out his other hand. “Buck?” Bucky slipped his metal hand into Steve’s waiting one, and Steve took a deep sigh. “If I’m deaf and blind forever, it’s worth it just to have you both back,” he said, smiling. Bucky and Sam shared a fond look, but it only took a moment before Sam cracked a silly grin.

“He’s still a drama-queen, I see,” Sam said, and Bucky snorted.

“Hey, I don’t think I’m wearing a lot of clothes,” Steve said, and then Sam was laughing big and loud.

Bucky patted Steve’s shoulder and then retrieved a pair of pants and tunic from the backpack. He landed them in Steve’s lap, and watched as Steve stood and started to touch and manipulate the fabric, and Bucky realized he was trying to figure out what was what. Bucky got impatient pretty quick, and tugged the fabric away, righting the pants so the waist was upright and then bending by Steve’s feet and tugging at his foot.

“Uh. Buck,” Steve said, stubbornly refusing to lift his foot. “I can dress myself. Give me the pants.” He held out a hand.

“It’s easier if I help you,” Bucky said aloud, but of course Steve couldn’t hear, so he sighed and tugged again.

Steve’s face got hard. “Pants. Please.”

Bucky shot a harassed look at Sam. “How does he know it’s me and not you?”

Sam chuckled as he slid into the chair by the window like he was settling in for a show. “How many years did you mother-hen him before the serum?”

Bucky rolled his eyes as Sam, and this time grabbed Steve’s ankle firmly, using the strength in his arm to lift it, but Steve was having none of it. He leaned forward and shoved Bucky hard at the shoulder, so he had to release his ankle to catch himself. “Come on, man!”

Sam was laughing. “Just let him figure it out. This is Steve we’re talking about.”

Bucky grunted as he rose and shoved the pants into Steve’s chest, none too lightly either. Steve grunted, but didn’t respond further. His jaw was locked hard and he spun away from Bucky’s direction.

Bucky just wanted to help and Steve was being a stubborn git as usual. The serum had changed plenty, but not the part of Steve that always fought against help from Bucky, even when he needed it most. In some ways it had been easier when Steve was deathly-ill or injured, because those were the only times he didn’t resist what Bucky clearly saw he needed.

_“Thank you, Buck, but I can get by on my own.”_

_“The thing is, you don’t have to.”_

A memory from the day they buried Sarah, standing together at the threshold to a dank apartment and negotiating, again. They’d come so far from that moment, but some things had stayed the same. Bucky leaned on the wall and sighed. Steve methodically examined the pants and the tunic until he figured out what leg was which, and where the head-hole was located on the tunic, and it took forever, but eventually he got himself dressed. Bucky became aware that Sam had been watching him the whole time, a sly smirk on his lips.

“What?” Bucky snapped.

“Dude, I know patience isn’t really a thing with you, but this is gonna be a long journey if you don’t learn some, and quick.” He winked, chuckling at his own joke.

“Yeah, well, you haven’t had to put up with his punk-ass as long as I have,” he said, gesturing to Steve, who was stoically patting the area around the bed, getting right to work at learning the layout of the room.

“No. But the Steve Rogers I know is going to do things his way, no matter what’s actually good for him. Best accept that, Barnes, because a little thing like being deafblind isn’t gonna change him.”

Bucky raised his eyebrow and tried to keep his voice light, “You telling me I gotta change, Wilson?”

“Might be easier, is all I’m saying.”

“I’ve already changed enough,” he whispered, and Sam, ever-intuitive, looked away. He’d hit a sore spot. A raw spot, even. Bucky had changed so much he wasn’t sure what had remained the same. Except that he still wanted to protect Steve, and seeing his friend in this condition had re-ignited that feeling in him like it was a Friday night in 1939 and Steve was ten minutes late to meet him at the pictures. So at least that part of him was still the same.

“Are you two still here?” Steve said. “Can you tell me which way to the kitchen? I’m starved.”

Sam pushed out of the chair at the same time Bucky pushed off the wall.

“Barnes, I got this,” Sam said, approaching Steve and touching his wrist, letting Steve feel his dog tags.

“Tell me there’s pie, Sam. Do the Wakandans eat pie?”

Sam looped his arm through Steve’s and started to lead him out of the room, but he paused at the door and gave Bucky a hard look.

“Barnes. I get it. This whole thing is crazy. None of us planned to get dusted and then brought back five years later, but we’re here and we’re all alive. Right now, nothing is trying to kill us or the universe for once. We’ve got some time, so let’s just give Steve some space to adjust.”

Bucky nodded, and Sam led Steve away.

He rubbed his forehead and tried to take a deep breath, but his lungs felt tight. He started a list in his head: Things That Make Everything Okay.

#1 - Alive. Both he and Steve were alive.

#2 - Steve Rogers was healthy, strong, and actually in good spirits, all things considered.

#3 - HYDRA was gone and couldn’t control him anymore. He was free.

#4 - Thanos was dead.

#5 - Wakanda was awesome and he was certain that someone would find Steve some pie.

#6 - He was remembering more every day about what it meant to be Bucky Barnes.

All totaled, his situation was pretty good. If one totaled up the last 100 years of his life, this was probably shaping up to be one of the few good eras. Then why did he feel so tense? Why couldn’t he shake this feeling like everything was about to fall apart again.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop hearing The Winter Soldier’s voice in his head: _Focus. Be prepared. Maintain consciousness and mobility. Be on guard._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, a whole month since my last update! I'm the worst. Thanks for hanging in there, and I hope you'll stick with me through to the end. I have quite the journey planned for our boys. Thanks for all the comments and kudos!

**Author's Note:**

> Title credit: "Blindness" by Metric


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